William F. Brazziel, a professor emeritus in the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, passed away Nov. 21, 2010, at his home after a long illness. Dr. Brazziel was born in Munford, Tenn. on Feb. 5, 1925, and is survived by his beloved wife of 54 years, Marian Edmondson Brazziel, their son, Dominique, and a sister, Ruby Walker.
Dr. Brazziel served in the U.S. Marine Corps during WWII and was stationed in the Asiatic Pacific Area: New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands. He received a Ph.D. in higher education and administration from Ohio State University and came to Connecticut from the post of director of general studies at Norfolk State University. Dr. Brazziel was appointed to the National Research Advisory Committee for Project Head Start by the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and to the National Advisory Committee on the Teaching Professions by the U.S. Commissioner of Education.
He was the author of Quality Education For All Americans, co-author of Shaping Higher Education’s Future and retired from UConn in 1996 after 27 years of work as a professor of higher education. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in memory of Dr. Brazziel to UConn’s Neag School of Education Dean’s fund. Checks noting the dean’s fund memorial to Dr. Brazziel’s memory should be made out to the UConn Foundation, 2390 Alumni Drive, Unit 3206, Storrs, CT 06269-3206.
John Brubacher, a former head of the Department of Educational Leadership and professor of education in the Neag School of Education, passed away in October 2010.
Dr. Brubacher was born July 17, 1928, in Albany, NY, and is survived by his beloved wife, Harriet, three children, Elizabeth, Janis and John, along with six grandchildren. After growing up in Hamden, Conn., Dr. Brubacher graduated from The Taft School and went on to earn his B.A. from Yale, his M.A. from Columbia and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Brubacher began his teaching career in St. Louis, Mo., followed by the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon, before taking a leave to work for the U.S. Naval Intelligence Service in Washington, D.C. In 1956 Dr. Brubacher and Mrs. Brubacher moved to Michigan where he taught in Grosse Pointe, became an elementary school principal, received his Ph.D. and later became superintendent of schools in Alpena, Mich., and Bellevue, Wash.
Dr. Brubacher’s 30-year career with UConn as a tenured professor and department head began in 1969 and led him to serve on numerous boards for school systems, working with administrators and superintendents. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made in Dr. Brubacher’s memory to UConn’s Neag School of Education. Checks can be made payable to: The UCONN Foundation, Inc. c/o John W. Brubacher, 2390 Alumni Drive, Unit 3206, Storrs, CT 06269.
As someone who had been working since she was 16 years old, Holly Maiorano described herself as “apprehensive” at the thought of retirement. But at the end of the last school year, after 35 years as a teacher and administrator, Maiorano stepped down as principal of Buckley Elementary School in Manchester, Conn., the place where she started her career as a student teacher in 1974.
For Maiorano, who earned a Sixth-Year Certificate from the Neag School in 1983, that career included work as a special education teacher in Windsor, an administrator at the Capitol Region Education Council, and for 17 years in the Manchester school system, the past 11 as principal at Buckley. “Retirement was my idea,” she says. “I was looking for a change, though I’ve told our superintendent that I’m available to help in any way I can.”
That spirit of cooperation, coupled with a positive attitude, has not only guided Maiorano throughout her professional life, it’s also her best advice to new teachers. “They should access every resource at their disposal,” she says. “Veteran teachers, for example, can be a great help in sharing what they know, opening up their ‘bag of tricks’ and demonstrating how to get the best from every student.”
While much has changed in education over 35 years, Maiorano says one thing hasn’t: the idea that all children can learn. “But gone are the days where teachers teach to the group,” she says. “We are more focused now on individual student performance, a more inclusive approach and one that allows each child to make academic progress.”
For new administrators, she counsels patience and compassion in dealing with students, parents and faculty. “I tend to see gray areas,” Maiorano says, “rather than black and white. You can’t draw lines in the sand and expect to be effective. It’s a process that ebbs and flows.”
That may also be true of Maiorano’s retirement. She is ready and willing to work as a “temporary administrator” should a principal or supervisor in her school district — or any district — take a leave of absence or a sabbatical. And she has no qualms about being able to step into a part-time role. “I’m a people person,” she says. “I know I can relate well to students and staff. In my ideal world, being able to stay active in education is the kind of retirement I hope to have.”
As I begin my second year as dean, I am very excited about the progress we have made this past year in moving toward our goal of becoming one of the top schools of education in the nation. I am very proud of the efforts of our talented faculty, staff and students in helping us to reach our goal. However, our goal can only be realized through a team effort – one that includes the help and support of Neag alums and friends.
Over the past few years, the Neag School of Education has established signature programs, considered among the best in the country, in teacher education; gifted and talented education; exercise science; school psychology; measurement, evaluation, and assessment; and administrator preparation. In particular this past year, according to the U.S. News and World Report, the Neag School was ranked the #1 graduate public school of education in the Northeast, with two of our core teacher preparation programs ranked in the top 20. In addition, for the second consecutive time, the doctoral program in kinesiology was recognized as the #1 program in the U.S.
Currently the Neag School is home to three research journals and two national research centers – The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talent and the Center on Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support. The newly formed Korey Stringer Institute was launched to study sudden death in sports, while our CommPACT schools project is receiving national attention as a school reform model focused on closing the achievement gap. Our Husky Sport program is positively impacting youth in the Hartford community by providing education in schools about healthy nutrition, life skills, physical activities, and academic opportunities. In addition, our physical therapy program, in conjunction with our Nayden Rehabilitation Clinic, continues to prepare the next generation of highly qualified physical therapists.
In order to sustain our high level of research, student achievement and program recognition, we need the help of our Neag alums and friends. Although we are all experiencing budget challenges, I am very appreciative of the support over the past few years given to the Neag School. Private donations made to the Dean’s Fund last year were instrumental in maintaining student scholarship support and providing funds for our faculty to conduct and present research at national conferences. Your contributions to the Dean’s Fund will be just as vital this year.
A gift to the Dean’s Fund will provide opportunities to enrich the experiences of our students and undergraduate and graduate programs. This will help pave the way for our students to become the next generation of great educators and health professionals. Please help us sustain the quality of the Neag School by making a gift this year. For more information, click here.
John Minton, associate producer for Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN, speaks at a panel on Nov 30th, 2010. The panel, hosted by the UConn Sports Business Association, consisted of four current ESPN employees who shared stories of their journeys to these positions. Photo: Jim Anderson/DAILY CAMPUS
For students who dream of one day working for ESPN, the biggest name in sports, the reality might be closer than they thought.
The UConn Sports Business Association hosted four ESPN staffers for a panel at the ITE building in November.
The panelists were SportsCenter producer Jon Lavoie, associate producer for Sunday NFL Countdown John Minton, coordinating producer Maureen Hassett-Lindsey, and SportsCenter anchor Kevin Negandhi.
Each of the panelists shared their stories about how they arrived at ESPN. Regardless of the path they took, their advice to students hoping to break into the world of sports reporting was similar: It will take a lot of hard work and persistence.
“I don’t know if it was actually my resume or just my constant pestering that finally got me a job interview with ESPN,” Lavoie said.
John Minton, one of the two alumni on the panel, said that he knew in high school that he wanted to work for ESPN. Throughout college, everything he did was strategically planned to help him attain his goal.
“It was too easy to be average, there were too many other people who were exactly the same as me,” Minton said. “What is really important is that you are putting yourself out there to be in the best position to succeed.”
The speakers wanted students to know that those who want to become involved in the sports business should not limit themselves.
Kevin Negandhi, the most notable panel member, admitted that his job isn’t all fun and games.
“There are probably 5,000 people that work at ESPN, and I only know a few hundred of them. But everybody’s job is important,” Negandhi said. “I get all the attention, good or bad. Whether something is actually my fault or if someone screws up behind the scenes, people still think it is the anchor’s fault.”
Lavoie said he hadn’t always known that he wanted to work in sports, and because of this he had to work even harder later on.
“I didn’t take the proper steps at UConn, but [later] I was persistent and I worked hard and eventually found the breaks I needed and made my own breaks,” Lavoie said. “I offered to work for free at a local channel, cutting clips and covering Ravens’ games.”
Students in the audience were appreciative of the advice.
“It is my dream to work at ESPN,” said Gavin Mestel, a third-semester accounting major. “I learned that there are all different paths, but the end result is limitless. Anything is possible if you work hard enough.”
Abram Tolwell, president of the Sport Business Association and a seventh-semester sports management major, was happy with the event’s turnout.
“We wanted students to get insight into the communications aspect of the business,” Tolwell said. “We were happy to have them. ESPN is a big name which people respond well to.”
The UConn Sport Business Association is a student-run organization dedicated to providing its members with a first-hand look into the sport industry along with tremendous opportunities for professional networking. Membership in the SBA is open to all UConn students interested in the sports industry. Primary participants include Sport Management majors from the Department of Kinesiology and School of Business majors at UConn.
This article originally appeared in the November 30, 2010 edition of the Daily Campus. Used with permission.
Lorna Carrasquillo, a graduate student in education, is a student teacher of science classes at Newington High School. Photo by Peter Morenus
Stephanie Mather Dominello and Lorna Carrasquillo, UConn graduates now student teaching in two Connecticut high schools, have a number of things in common. Both decided that they wanted to teach after looking at other career paths. Both say teaching is much busier and more challenging than they initially expected. And both want to make a difference in the lives of young people.
They also say that winning large scholarships through the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Scholarship Program gave them the financial boost they needed to get into the classroom.
The award, funded by a $900,000 grant through the NSF, provides $15,000 scholarships to students who pass a rigorous application process and plan to teach in the STEM fields of either science or mathematics – areas where there is a severe shortage of qualified teachers in the country. In return for accepting the scholarship, the students promise to teach in one of the disciplines, in a Connecticut school with demonstrated high need, for at least two years after earning their master’s degree in education.
Currently, 19 students in UConn’s first class under the grant are student teaching in schools across Connecticut. Next semester, the students will switch into research mode, working on questions to which the districts where they’re assigned need answers. After that, it’s on to the real world, as the newly qualified teachers work to land jobs in their field.
“There are places in the country where people with high school diplomas are teaching in STEM-related classrooms,” says Michael Alfano, director of the program and an associate professor-in-residence in the Neag School of Education’s Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates. “And there are other locations where the people teaching the STEM courses have absolutely no background in those areas. Through this program we’ll be able to inject at least 50 new teachers into Connecticut’s schools, teaching in areas of critical shortage, during the next five years.”
Alfano says the Neag School had initially planned to issue only 10 scholarships a year for the next five years, but the pool of applicants was so strong they decided to expand the class.
Carrasquillo won a Noyce Scholarship from the National Science Foundation that enabled her to pursue a career as an educator. Photo by Peter Morenus
“We had such a robust pool we went back to the funder – the National Science Foundation – and asked if we could expand it. They agreed,” Alfano says. “Our end goal is, if we’re successful, we can go back after five years and apply for an extension.”
The class includes students between the ages of 22 and the mid-50s. Alfano says there are a handful of “classic career changers,” several students moving through the normal progress of undergraduate degree to graduate level studies, and doctoral students who decided research wasn’t their cup of tea.
One of those is Carrasquillo, who performed research during a summer internship between her junior and senior years at UConn.
“It was interesting, but really what it told me was that I didn’t want to make a career out of research,” she says.
At the same time, she began tutoring other UConn undergraduates in calculus and chemistry through the Q Center. Then she started tutoring for the Upward Bound Program, which helps underrepresented students gain the skills they need to succeed in college. That sold her.
“I loved it. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,” Carrasquillo says. “There are so many stereotypes about these students, but they were really interested and motivated. That’s when I decided I wanted to teach, and during my senior year I observed some classes and enjoyed it.”
She also is looking forward to teaching in an underperforming school after she finishes her student teaching and research project.
Carrasquillo, a native Spanish-speaker, hopes to teach chemistry in a school where most students don’t speak English well, so she can also help them with language issues. Photo by Peter Morenus
“I want to teach in a high needs school,” says Carrasquillo. “I’m considering getting bilingual certification. Spanish was my first language. My sister, who is Colombian, came to America when she was 11. She spoke very little English, and I knew she wasn’t getting the best education she could. I’d like to help students [who are in a similar situation].”
Carrasquillo, a native Spanish-speaker, hopes to teach chemistry in a school where most students don’t speak English well, so she can also help them with language issues. Photo by Peter Morenus
Carrasquillo, who is currently student teaching at Newington High School, says she would like to teach chemistry in a school where most students don’t speak English well so she can help them with both the science and the language. For her second semester research project she’s considering proposing a study of multicultural education, and how it can be improved.
Carrasquillo and her colleagues began their journey in May, earning 21 credits during two summer sessions.
The days and nights were intense, says Dominello. “It was pretty hard, busy, but I learned a lot and I thought it was great.”
A 2001 Windham High School graduate, Dominello earned an undergraduate degree from UConn in 2005 and a master’s degree in 2007, studying civil engineering with a concentration in urban and transportation engineering. She then landed a job at United Research Services, a Rocky Hill engineering firm that performed work for the state Department of Transportation. Although she enjoyed the job, she also felt the pull of education.
“I want to continue to be an engineer, but I always wanted to be a teacher,” Dominello says. “I want students to see how much physics relates to our lives. I want to bring what I know about engineering to the classroom. I’d love to somehow do both, to stay in the engineering world, but I want to help people too.” Dominello is student teaching at Bacon Academy in Colchester.
The grant UConn received spans several academic departments in two schools at UConn. The grant proposal was prepared by Thomas DeFranco, dean of the Neag School, and Charles Vinsonhaler, former head of the Department of Mathematics and now an adjunct professor of math in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Other faculty involved in the proposal were Fabiana Cardetti, math; Juliet Lee, molecular and cell biology; and Alfano.
Dr. Richard Bohannon, Professor of Physical Therapy in the Department of Kinesiology
If you were to make a list of the top 100 most-cited articles in medical rehabilitation literature in the past 40 years—and a recent analysis by the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation did just that—the name of Neag Physical Therapy Professor Richard Bohannon would turn up three times. Of the 45,700 articles published between 1959 and 2002, the analysis found Bohannon with the second most-cited: his modification of the Ashworth scale, a long-established measurement of muscle spasticity, that his research made more precise.
First published in 1987 in the journal Physical Therapy, Bohannon’s article, co-authored by physical therapist Melissa Smith, has been cited more than a thousand times. The self-deprecating Bohannon calls the citation analysis results “personally gratifying, but leveraged by virtue of the article’s focus on the measurement of an important neurological sign.” He’s also quick to joke that “my wife would say it’s not a cure for cancer and I shouldn’t let it go to my head. But it is an important benchmark for the Neag School and for the Department of Kinesiology’s Program in Physical Therapy.”
Another benchmark comes this fall when Bohannon is formally named a Fellow of the American Society of Neurorehabilitation (ASNR), one of only four such designees. He’ll receive the honor at ASNR’s annual meeting in Montreal at the end of October.
While recognition is important, Bohannon says he believes the vast majority of Neag Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students choose to come to UConn for other reasons. “I hope they’re here because they have an interest in and a dedication to physical therapy, to helping patients,” he says. “We want them to share our feeling that PT is not just a job. That, however, doesn’t diminish the impact and importance of research.”
As for PT alumni, Bohannon is eager for them to maintain strong ties to both the Program and the University. “I hope they would feel free to engage with us,” he says. “I hope they respond to the various surveys we send out. It’s easy to blow off things like that, but I want them to know that their feedback is extremely important.”
It will surely be important in March of 2011 when the Physical Therapy Program is visited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) for review of its Doctor of Physical Therapy Program. By means of site visits and other data, CAPTE will assess the Program’s strengths and weaknesses, how well it prepares its students for PT practice, and generally, how to make a good program better. Bohannon points out that licensure examination scores for Neag PT graduates are very high and that likely will be a factor in securing CAPTE accreditation.
Reflecting on his more than 30 years in academic and professional life, Bohannon says awards, honors, even accreditation are all, as he might put it, “blessings.” But he also playfully puts them in their proper place. He shared his belief that things like this do not necessarily have “eternal” value. On the other hand, says Bohannon, “we have to remember that the “here and now” matters, too!”
Desi Nesmith, principal at America’s Choice at SAND School in Hartford
On a late day in July, Desi Nesmith sat in his no-frills office at America’s Choice at SAND School in the North End of Hartford. No school banner hangs on the wall. No 2009-10 calendar to remind him of his first year as a principal. No Husky blue.
He had just been trained by a “breakthrough coach” to balance his professional and personal lives by keeping them separate. Part of the deal was to make his office less homey.
“I’m going to attempt to make this adjustment. Look behind you,” he says, gesturing to boxes and bins packed with his belongings. “That was my office yesterday.”
He’s trying, but the casual visitor gets the idea this new effort will in no way temper his passion for making over a school that, before he came, was stuck on the No Child Left Behind “needs improvement” list with state mastery test scores ranking 11th from the bottom.
“It’s my first year as principal at SAND, so I’m totally open to ways to be effective and doing this job,” he says.
Last spring Nesmith received the inaugural “Promising Young Professional Award” from the Neag School of Education Alumni Society. Nominated by Neag Dean Thomas DeFranco and former Dean Richard Schwab, Nesmith was touted by Schwab as “one of the most talented graduates that we had during my tenure as dean.” In late September, Nesmith also garnered the “Outstanding First-Year Principal Award” from the Connecticut Association of Schools.
Nesmith was selected to lead SAND in its first year under the America’s Choice school redesign. As part of that, all faculty had to reapply for their jobs, competing with applicants from elsewhere in the district. Only about a third of the original staff was selected to stay. Families could opt in or out of the school, but if they stayed, they signed a compact to commit to the project.
The result was that Connecticut Mastery Test scores showed double-digit improvement in almost every subject and grade, the greatest gains at any elementary school in the city. Third-grade reading scores from last year shot up from 22 percent at or above proficiency to almost 54 percent this year.
He’s proud of the students, of course, but especially of the teachers. “I refer to them as the ‘A Team’,” he says. “I was able to bring on staff who come here for a reason. Failure was not an option.” His big dream is to ditch the “needs improvement” rating at SAND altogether.
On the first day of school this fall, Hartford Superintendent Steven Adamowski visited SAND School as part of a tour of success stories in the district. The official state visit was featured in the CTNow section of The Hartford Courant. Nesmith credited the school’s swift progress to adhering to its learning model, which includes a 2.5-hour daily literature block; building parent and student support; and having a core of committed teachers.
They’ve come a long way at SAND. “Some kids told the assistant principal and I that ‘we used to run the building,’ and I have no doubt. They learned pretty quick that it was a new day,” Nesmith recalls.
Nesmith’s day starts at 7 a.m. with breakfast with students and sometimes parents. He checks his calendar for the day, visits classrooms to observe instruction, and then consults with Assistant Principal Donna Wellins over lunch in her office. His afternoon is filled with meetings to gauge the status on personalized teaching plans, returning calls, and visiting specialty classes, such as art and music. He has been known to head to the gym, doff his jacket and play a little basketball with the kids. “Of course, they don’t want you to leave but you have to leave,” he says.
After that he often deals with budget and human resources issues and speaks with his special education director, who is spread over one of four zones in the city.
His stories are filled with people, students, teachers and parents from the past and present. People like Shakur Mackey, a summer school student entering the seventh grade. “This time last year he certainly gave me a run for his money. Now he’s done a 180,” Nesmith says.
Outside class that day, Shakur, dressed in a neat polo shirt and khakis, says, “I used to get in trouble a lot because I used to make bad choices. I’m making better choices.”
“He’s a work in progress,” Nesmith comments as Shakur goes back to his expository writing exercise.
He shows off Elka Spencer’s class of sixth-graders going into seventh, who are writing reports. One student, Juan Ruiz, has written about the Butler-McCook House in the Hartford Icon Project. He interviewed the site’s manager and discovered the toys from the time period, World War I service by one of the Butlers, and the story of how the house was put back in shape after a wayward driver crashed into it a few years ago.
Nesmith mentions Grandma Mildred, the family taskmaster for one of his students. “He knows I’ll pick up the phone and call her on any little thing. She doesn’t play. She drills into this kid that he comes to school to learn. She and I are on the same page with that.”
But Nesmith’s favorite story is about CJ Morrison. As a fifth-grader in Nesmith’s class at Mayberry School in East Hartford, CJ didn’t like to write. Nesmith, in his first teaching job, visited CJs home to work with him. That year, CJ scored in the proficient range of the CMTs in writing.
Now CJ, a student at Capitol Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, reads to SAND second-graders every Tuesday. “Just to see him once a week in his tie and his jacket working with my kids…” Nesmith says of the circle of learning.
Part of Nesmith’s style is to stay in touch. He does so with Leon McKinley, his mentor, who hired him at Mayberry and promoted him along the way. McKinley, director of Hartford elementary schools, calls Nesmith “a star in the making,” who one day will be a strong superintendent. Nesmith gets advice from his past teaching colleagues, many of them directing schools of their own, and checks in on myriad past students and their parents.
Maureen DeLucco, the mother of a former student at Mayberry, says, “That to me is the real test. He’ll look up the kids after they’re out of class. Some teachers, after they’re done, they’ll close the door. Not Mr. Nesmith.”
Nesmith earned a B.S. in 2001 and an M.A. in 2002 through the Neag IB/M program and completed the UCAPP administrator preparation program in May 2009. He taught for two years at Mayberry, which he calls “magical,” and worked as a teacher in residence at the Connecticut State Department of Education, where he met his wife, Aixa Couvertier, now a literacy coach at the School for Young Children on Asylum Hill in Hartford. Couvertier also graduated from Neag’s IB/M program in 1998.
“Desi has that rare quality that we admire in effective leaders,” Dean DeFranco says, “a clear vision for the school, strong leadership skills for the teachers and staff, high expectations for the students, and a management style that helps create a safe and welcoming school environment for parents, teachers, and students.” The feeling about Neag and UConn is mutual. “I’ve been blessed,” Nesmith says. “I’m a big fan of my UConn.”
This map of Connecticut, prepared by the Office of Assessment at the Neag School of Education, illustrates how many Neag School alumni (teachers, related services, administrators, and superintendents) are employed by each district in 2009-2010.
Did you know 165 out of 166 school districts in Connecticut employed Neag alumni in the 2009-10 school year?
Did you know that 3,094 Neag alumni currently work in Connecticut schools?
Neag’s assessment director, Mary Yakimowski, and graduate students have been analyzing employment patterns of 1986-2008 graduates. The demographics tracked annually include where the graduates are working, how each category is broken down by gender and race/ethnicity, and even which districts employ the most graduates from each field or concentration. Of the 166 school districts in CT, only one district, Derby, did not employ a Neag graduate during the 2009-2010 school year.
“We are learning how to display this information visually and collaborated with the Mapping and Geographic Information Center (MAGIC) from the university’s library,” said John Harris, IB/M graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. “Using a special mapping software, we were able to generate maps illustrating how many alumni are employed during the school year by district.”
According to Dr. Yakimowski, “Hopefully what we have learned — where our graduates are working — will be a stepping stone to assessing the impact Neag graduates have on their students.”
A major challenge is on its way to American education, one that teachers candidly concede they may not be ready to meet. Figures from the Census Bureau show that by 2030, 40% of U.S. students will be raised in homes where English is not the first language. Those startling numbers become even more of a concern when viewed alongside the results of a 1999 National Center for Education Statistics report that showed a vast majority of the teachers surveyed felt inadequately prepared to help English Language Learners (ELLs) succeed in the classroom. Teacher preparation programs, therefore, will have to focus more attention on getting pre-service teachers ready for the burgeoning ELL challenge they will face, and a new program at the Neag School aims to do exactly that.
Called Project PREPARE-ELLs (Preparing Responsive Educators to Promote Access and Realize Excellence with English Language Learners), the program grew out of a book club led by faculty members in the Neag School’s Bilingual and Multicultural Education Program. From 2006 to 2008, participation in the book club helped five professors begin understanding the needs that ELLs bring to their learning of academic content.
This year, the project expanded to include 16 faculty members and, with funding from the Neag Teachers for a New Era program, was able to bring nationally recognized ELL experts to the Storrs campus for an intensive week of professional development. Those 16 are now infusing the new materials, objectives and readings they were given into their own teacher preparation courses for students at the Neag School.
What are the problems that English Language Learners face? As Neag Assistant Professor Elizabeth Howard puts it, they are variable by age and educational experience, but, she adds, “ELLs also come with a host of interests, experiences and skills in their home languages that can be used to promote learning here.”
Too often, though, pre-service teachers have received what Howard calls “limited guidance” in the instruction of ELLs, and that guidance often comes too late in their training, well after their involvement in both methods courses and student teaching. Project PREPARE-ELLs is working with the Neag School’s IB/M and TCPCG faculty to assess the possibility of introducing diversity- and ELL-related course work earlier in those programs. They will be guided, in part, by the Sheltered Instructional Observational Protocol (SIOP), a research-based approach that provides ELLs with both language and content instruction simultaneously.
“It uses a lot of visual aids and manipulatives,” Howard says. “Another important component is comprehensible input; that is, slower, simplified speech that is frequently accompanied by graphic organizers and other teaching aids.”
But Project PREPARE-ELLs has only just begun its work and during the current academic year will continue to collect multiple forms of data to explore how revised curriculum and instruction are affecting both the Neag School’s teacher preparation courses and students’ knowledge, dispositions and teaching practices. As Neag Assistant Professor Thomas Levine views the Project’s goals and outcomes, they are designed, he says, “to achieve lasting, systemic change in the way individual instructors and our wider teacher preparation programs prepare teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse students.”
William F. Brazziel, a professor emeritus in the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, passed away Nov. 21, 2010, at his home after a long illness. Dr. Brazziel was born in Munford, Tenn. on Feb. 5, 1925, and is survived by his beloved wife of 54 years, Marian Edmondson Brazziel, their son, Dominique, and a sister, Ruby Walker.
John Brubacher, a former head of the Department of Educational Leadership and professor of education in the 
